When I connect just the 1st and 2nd pins to the +5v and GND coming off the Pi's GPIO header, the Pi immediately resets, as if it had been shorted or too much current was drawing off it. However, the 50mA +3.3v pin works fine, and I can hook up the rest of the display straight to the GPIO pins and drive it with no problem.

Although the datasheet has the display at up to 30mA, I probably shouldn't be using the +3.3v pin for this(?).Does the display have any known issues at 5v? Thanks.

That should be enough unless you have a lot of peripherals connected. But the display works fine at 3.3v, so it is not a short in the display. Maybe it creates some noise on the 5v rail that causes a reset?

There's a little problem with doing it that way... Did you verify the 3.3V while you were doing all that? Because it probably dropped out a lot. Quiz question is: what happens when you start to draw current through the 10k of the divider?

Zener wrote:There's a little problem with doing it that way... Did you verify the 3.3V while you were doing all that? Because it probably dropped out a lot. Quiz question is: what happens when you start to draw current through the 10k of the divider?

Do you mean read off the voltage in series while it's connected to the display? I've tried it all the way up to 4.67v, still no luck. Although, when I send commands to it, it sometimes briefly flashes.

Zener wrote:Hook a volt meter to teh 3.3V line and verify that it is still 3.3V with everything hooked up. I am guessing it is not.

You're absolutely right, it's dropping right down to 0.8v with the divider, but remains at 3.3v when hooked up to the working 3.3v line.Thanks! Can you suggest a better way to lower the voltage please?